In Good Heavens! by Nowhere Studios, cooking provides character stat buffs rather than preventing a death timer from hunger. You unlock early culinary skills through the Homesteading tech tree, craft a Prep Table out of wood blocks, and prepare dishes ranging from simple raw salads to cooked soups.
How Food and Cooking Work in Good Heavens!
Unlike standard survival games where an empty hunger bar leads to starvation, developer Nowhere Studios designed the survival systems in Good Heavens! with "room to breathe." Food items strengthen your character's stats instead of forcing you to constantly babysit survival meters. This allows you to explore procedural floating islands, delve into dungeons, and fight bosses like the Mountain King without having your adventures interrupted by a ticking starvation clock.
Culinary progression is directly tied to the Homesteading tech tree. Homesteading is one of the game's three world-focused tech trees (alongside Exploration and Influence), governing:
- Cooking and meal preparation
- Farming and crop plots
- Irrigation and watering tools
- Carpentry and home building
Unlocking Cooking and Building the Prep Table
During the initial tutorial progression in Xant-Rar, players typically start by foraging raw roots, wild berries, and mushrooms to consume directly from the hotbar. Your spectral guide eventually prompts you to move beyond eating raw, suspicious wilderness snacks by introducing proper food preparation.
To set up your first kitchen station:
- Open your tech tree and unlock the cooking technology node under the Homesteading category.
- Open your building menu and select the Prep Table blueprint.
- Gather the required wood blocks (chopped from trees using a stone axe) to complete the construction of the table.
Your introductory cooking task focuses on simple, unheated food—specifically a green salad. Because this starter recipe requires no open fire, it provides a safe, burn-free introduction to meal crafting before you move on to heated pots and complex soups.
Sourcing Ingredients Through Farming
Most cooked dishes rely on cultivated vegetables and gathered wild produce. Farming mechanics provide steady supplies for kitchen work:
- Farm Plots: Craft a hoe at your workbench and till soil plots near your base.
- Seeds: Foraged crops provide seeds, such as carrot seeds and tomato seeds. For instance, early NPC quests provide tomato seeds to start your farm.
- Irrigation: Learn the irrigation node in your Homesteading tree, craft a wooden watering can at the workbench, fill it at a nearby water source, and water your crops to ensure growth.
Note for demo and early access builds: Developers have noted that if your inventory is completely full when receiving seeds as a quest reward, items are supposed to drop to the ground, but early build bugs could occasionally cause dropped seeds to fail to register. Keep your inventory clear when turning in farming tasks.
Known Dishes and Recipe Acquisition
While simple items can be crafted at your early workstations, specialized recipes require specific interactions in settlements:
| Item / Recipe | Source / Requirement | Known Use or Mechanic |
|---|---|---|
| Salad | Unlocked at the Prep Table | Starter green dish requiring no fire to craft. |
| Mushroom Soup | Recipe purchased from town shops | Prepared meal. Developers confirmed players must interact directly with the shop building itself rather than the NPC shopkeeper to buy the recipe. |
| Carrot Soup | Early-game consumable soup | Restores and boosts stats when consumed from the hotbar. |
| Tomato Juice | Crafted using harvested tomatoes | Turn-in item requested by the NPC Zoe (daughter of Spiky Joe) to help wash down a bitter spike sprouting potion for 50 coins. |
| Raw Mushrooms / Berries | Foraged in the wild | Consumable directly from the hotbar without cooking. |
How to Eat Food and Troubleshoot Item Bugs
To consume any food item or soup you have prepared:
- Move the finished dish or raw ingredient to your active hotbar.
- Select the item by pressing the corresponding slot number on your keyboard, or simply right-click the item directly on the hotbar.
Common Control and Inventory Glitches
In early builds and multiplayer sessions, players have reported issues where prepared items (such as a freshly made mushroom soup) cannot be picked up, moved, or eaten.
Official developer responses on the Steam forums confirm that these instances are caused by stability bugs that temporarily lock player control inputs rather than an intentional menu mechanic. If your character cannot eat an item via right-click or slot key:
- Ensure the item is actively placed in the hotbar rather than sitting in an unassigned backpack slot.
